Srinagar, Aug 9: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh on Wednesday dismissed a petition, challenging detention order under Public Safety Act against Jamaat-e-Islami chief Abdul Hameed Ganie alias Dr.Hameed Fayaz.
“Those who are responsible for national security or for maintenance of public order must be the sole judges of what the national security, public order or security of the State requires,” a bench of Justice M. A. Chowdhary said while dismissing a petition filed by Fayaz Hameed’s wife, seeking quashing of the detention order under PSA by District Magistrate Shopian on 16 September last year.
“Preventive detention is devised to afford protection to society. The object is not to punish a man for having done something but to intercept before he does it and to prevent him from doing,” the court said, adding, “Justification for such detention is suspicion or reasonable probability and not criminal conviction, which can only be warranted by legal evidence. Thus, any preventive measures, even if they involve some restraint or hardship upon individuals, as held by the Supreme Court in the case ‘Ashok Kumar v. Delhi Administration & Ors., AIR 1982 SC 1143’, do not contribute in any way of the nature of punishment.”The detention record, the court said, indicates that the Dr Fayaz is a highly qualified person and has completed Ph.D degree from Kashmir University and the he was affiliated with Jammat-e-Islami from college life and subsequently he was selected as “Ameer” of Jamat-e- Islami J&K in the year 2018.
